I got back from my spring vacation. The focus of this trip was visiting people and stuff missed last year. The trip was pretty nice, other than hitting a deer in PA. It is surprising how much plastic there is in the front end of a pickup these days. I remember the last one I hit in the gold buick (92 Century), and it barely hurt anything. The truck did not get so lucky. Still though, I was lucky enough that it didn't damage anything critical on the truck, and that I have been too lazy to drop full coverage from the truck, which I had intended to do after 3 years.
With that out of the way, here the pictures. These are all uploaded here: https://photobucket.com/share/7fb5db49-fb1c-443b-a210-fdb4dffa49b2
- Prep stuff and the drive down, no scenery. https://photobucket.com/share/de6cb7eb-8a6c-4d5a-8570-95eaa88836ad
- The first stop on the trip was Red River Gorge. https://photobucket.com/share/25cf0358-129b-4ed6-a407-385f0750c8b1
- The first stop I missed last year was Mammoth Cave. I did the Domes and Dripstones tour. Dad went with me: https://photobucket.com/share/6a2e2941-24e0-43cf-a614-1cc10b92ff89
- While there, we also hit Lost River and did a cave boat tour. It was a bit shorter than I expected, but was still fun, and welcome after the load of stairs at Mammoth Cave: https://photobucket.com/share/a699044f-24f1-400a-9d0e-91f59acbfbdc
- After KY, I went up and visited Mike. He lives in Delaware, so I went and visited Assateague National Shoreline. This isn't a national park (I think it is a National Recreational Area), but was well worth visiting, and is one of the few places where horses still roam wild. This album also covers going over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and tunnel, of which there is more than one of each as I found out. https://photobucket.com/share/3f201331-f28b-47f1-9bb1-540595c9e92d
- I ended up near Stuart's Draft that evening. I had extra time so I redid part of the Skyline Drive. I hit Shenandoah last year, but didn't get to any of the visitor centers, and still needed to pick up my stickers and souvenirs. https://photobucket.com/share/d24b50b3-9e72-4cf9-b13b-404e87dfb8f8
- Here are some other various pictures I took during the trip. They will all be captioned soon so there is context. https://photobucket.com/share/b5c81250-cefc-4ad3-b207-14eb2fa93b94
All told the trip was approximately 4k miles (I don't know exact courtesy of the Ford resetting trips). The deer didn't impact the gas mileage much; I averaged 21-22 when driving slow, but even in Delaware and Maryland where I was merely keeping up with traffic (sometimes pushing >90) I got just under 20mpg. Not bad for a full size pickup with its aerodynamics altered by the deer. Still though, with gas price fixing going on (it is rather suspicious that every state was 4.19 a gallon when there is usually a lot of variance), the CR-V would have been nice.
For those who don't have time to browse, here are a few selected favorites:
Red River Gorge
Mammoth Cave
Lost River Cave
Shenandoah Drive home
Despite the temperatures, it wasn't too cold when I got back either. I expected the house to be in the low 40s. It still sucks turning on the heat after it was 80 in KY.
One of the nicest things about the trip is that everything was in full bloom. I had hoped that after being gone for almost two weeks that things would have bloomed when I got home. Not so. They are in the process of blooming now (I have been home just under a week as I write this).
The final version of the tape. It held up surprisingly well, no rattles or vibrations, and the headlight was surprisingly close to pointed correctly. The truck goes in next Wednesday for the insurance claim inspection.
I took the truck because I was hauling a bunch of stuff down, and courtesy of the deer, it was a good thing I did (the CR-V has nothing but liability on it). That said, in general the car is better than the truck. It is much more comfortable to sleep in, it is narrower which is nice on a lot of the sub-par roads I drive on. The greater gas mileage while not sacrificing 4WD is really nice. And I designed a camper for it which works a whole lot better than the system I used in the truck. My fall trip will definitely be in the car, mostly because of gas prices. I added Mammoth Cave on this trip, and am heading north and west this fall to fill those in. That is a lot of miles. Perhaps I will head south next spring.
With the photos done, time to start working on projects. The big ones for this year are the roof extension/garage and the deck. I have been looking at trucks too, but I am afraid if I buy the box truck this year I won't be able to afford one of the projects, though I suppose it isn't the end of the world if I have to push the deck out another year. Before those though, I think I need to finish the metal carport up the hill so I can get some of the stuff out of the carport by the house so I can work on mowers. I have two lawn tractors and right now neither is capable of mowing, and mowing season is upon us.
